Lightest Rocket - Escaping the Solar System

[Aleythus]

The challenge is to escape the Solar System with the lightest rocket as possible .

You are allowed to use swing bys or even mining .

and really simple rules:

* only Stock parts

* no F12 (debug mode) or any cheats such as part.cfg edits

My record:

Mass: 4.4t

Parts: 23

Height: 2.6m

I hope you surprise me with your buildings and have fun!

Edited August 21, 2015 by Aleythus

[Joshwoo70]

Broken images!

[Aleythus]

Oh yes, the images only worked on my own pc. Gonna change that ...

[ghostbuzzer7]

Oh my days, you already got yourself a winning design o_o :hailKing: How long did it take you to simply get that out of the solar system in human time

[Aleythus]

Not really that long because i could time warp (x4). Its very stable. I didnt go in a lko and pointed straight.

[rosetyler]

what a awesome design

[Aleythus]

Thank you

[Foxster]

Any particular starting point? The sun's orbit, Kerbin orbit...?

Update...

I'm guessing from a post above that you mean a launch from the KSC.

I'm a bit concerned about your craft. You used tweakscales on at least the fuelcell array and I'm not sure where the fuel for that is coming from in your top stage.

Using tweakscales and other part mods in challenges is not a good idea as it's very difficult to have a level playing field. Much better to say stock only.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Foxster

[Aleythus]

Uhm, i didnt used tweakscale or other mods i just used stock parts and used the offset mode (2) while building. I attached the engines on an octaconal strut which is placed under the last fuel tank. So i made a new version which is even MUCH smaller but with the same parts as my old model. Actually there are 10 liquid tanks "compressed" into one tank (via the offset mode). The ion tank isnt missing its in the pod . Basicly its a two stage rocket:

first stage: ion tank + engine and the unmanned pod

second stage: liquid tanks (10) + engines

new Height: 1.0m

Edited August 27, 2015 by Aleythus

[Gojira]

I would say that part clipping shouldn't be allowed, but that's just me.

[Aleythus]

Does part clipping mean that you placed a part so that it intersects with an other part? But i didnt used any mods for that?! Can you only perform part clipping in debug mode? Ok than the first version is without part clipping and the second is with part clipping

[purpleivan]

I'm submitting an entry in the challenge with a launch mass of 3.9 tons.

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The vehicle was stock with no part clipping and all flying done manually.

I wasted a bit of mass (about 0.1t) by carrying a little too much oxidiser in the tank for the Rapier engine, which ended up being jettisoned with the tank when the liquid fuel in it ran out.

BTW... the time from launch to achieving escape velocity was 49 minutes and it took 4h:40m to leave Kerbin SOI.

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Does part clipping mean that you placed a part so that it intersects with an other part? But i didnt used any mods for that?! Can you only perform part clipping in debug mode? Ok than the first version is without part clipping and the second is with part clipping

Part clipping is when parts are placed so that they substantially intersect each other and doesn't require any mods, just rotating or translating parts into each other using the VAB GUI. Many challenges don't allow any serious part clipping, with only small intersection allowed. Some (e.g. the Jool 5 challenge) have a strict no part clipping rule.

I'd say that the stack of Round-8's isn't really part clipping, as they are connected as intended by the developer. This apparent clipping seems like an error by Squad in positioning the attachment points for those tanks too close to the center of the height of the tank, so they intersect when stacked. However I'm curious how the engines are connected to the Round-8's in your design (i.e. how the fuel connection is made from the bottom Round-8 to the four engines).

Edited September 11, 2015 by purpleivan